[identity profile] amethysting.livejournal.com


Jack-Ass
Beck
Odelay
1996

Beck's monotone delivery combined with the sample of Them's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" makes "Jack-Ass" this blown-glass-delicate, beautiful thing.  I'm having a hard time writing this post not because I associate "Jack-Ass" with a personal memory, but because of the very fact that it is a stunningly beautiful song.  It stirs up my insides and leaves me kind of slack-jawed and dreamy. 

Guitar is layered under that melody from "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" which is punctuated by the occasional plink of an xylophone until, at 2:08, everything stops and that all-on-its-own guitar paired with the lines, "I been drifting along in the same stale shoes/Loose ends tying the noose in the back of my mind" manage to knock you over.

Eventually, the sampled melody and the lyrics are dropped altogether; the song mellowly rocks out.  I like that it ends that way.  That, despite the tone of the lyrics throughout, the song morphs into something dominated by a wheezing harmonica, the braying of a donkey; into this strange and compelling thing.
 

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